


For Distant Stars

by CatNerdsOut



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Battlestar Galactica Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, BSG AU, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gift Exchange, IN SPACE!, LT earns her title, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28158117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatNerdsOut/pseuds/CatNerdsOut
Summary: As a child, Carol had learned the story: how the Cylons were created by Man to make life easier for the Twelve Colonies before they rebelled and fought against their creators in a bloody war, then disappeared beyond dark space.  But no one had seen the Cylons in forty years, and certainly she never expected them to return the day she and Yon were out on flight training.A/N: You do not need to know anything about Battlestar Galactica to read this.  I promise.
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Maria Rambeau & Monica Rambeau, Carol Danvers/Yon-Rogg
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainCinderBella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainCinderBella/gifts).



> To CaptainCinderBella as part of the holiday YonVers gift exchange: Happy holidays, enjoy your death and destruction of the Twelve Colonies. But in all seriousness, I have so enjoyed our chats from character motivations, to fandoms, to (my favorite topic of all) food.
> 
> To everyone else: if you haven’t seen the Battlestar Galactica, please treat yourself and do so. It’s great and holds up really well even though it’s been over 10 years since it aired. This is just through the miniseries, so all you really need to know is: 1. humanity is a space fairing society with 2. Greek myths as their religion and 3. the machine race they made and fought with decades prior is coming back to wipe them out and 4. ‘frak’ is their in-universe curse word. I’ve tried to write it in such a way that you don’t need to be familiar with the show to follow this story.
> 
> This is an AU, not a crossover. While some of the BSG cast is alluded to, they’re all off-page. So I am only posting it here in the Captain Marvel fandom. This became extremely long because too many characters came along for the ride. Also at one point this became a game to see how many fic tropes I could squeeze in a single story. I think I managed to end up with 10. Also it was also incredibly hard for me to just type ‘Yon’ instead of ‘Yon-Rogg.’

Caprica

6 hours before The Fall

Carol tossed her duffle to the side and flopped down on the pilot’s seat of the Raptor with an exasperated huff.Normally she would take any excuse to get into space, including the most mundane of scouting runs in Colonial Fleet’s standard combat support craft.But today she was determined to make this as unpleasant as possible for everyone involved.This was a matter of principle and her honor had been called into question.

“I feel like we _just_ did this.”

“That was three years ago, Carol,” Yon Rogg, retorted in a equally frustrated tone from his place at the adjacent chair.

There was also the side benefit of annoying her commanding officer, a practice which she had turned into a game.

“Like I said: we just did this.Why are we doing this again?”

Yon sighed.“Each member of the Caprican Starforce has to renew their Raptor certification every three years.You know that.At any time we may be tasked with reconnaissance, search-and-rescue, or transport of larger detachments.”He ticked off each function on his fingers as though she were still the green novice who had joined his team six years prior.It only served to irritate her all the more.“After that mining disaster on the asteroid several years back, Starforce cross-training on Raptors became standard.Do you really not remember—?” 

He stopped abruptly at the sight of Carol’s answering smirk.

“I don’t know why I bother,” Yon said with a shake of his head.He held out the flight manual and preflight checklist towards her.She reluctantly took both.Sporting a frown that bordered on a scowl, she set them on her lap, making no move to open either.

“So why are you overseeing my flight time and not one of the instructors on base?”

He barked out a sharp laugh.“Because you falsified your hours and the last two instructors were too intimidated to contradict you.”Somehow he managed to to sound both derisive and impressed by this feat. 

She looked at him incredulously.“Oh come on, I rounded up—” she protested.

“Generously,” he supplied.“You’re lucky Commander Lawson has a soft spot for you and is allowing me to supervise.Anyone else would have thrown you in the brig and suspended your flight status for that stunt.”

She looked over at him, a new form of teasing entering her mind.Wisps of an idea gathered and curled around her mind like smoke, filling her thoughts.The corner of her mouth tipped into a crooked smile.“You know Yon,” she said with a seductive drawl, “if you just wanted some alone time, you only had to say something.”

He rolled his eyes, unwilling to rise to the bait.“You’re nine hours short, so buckle in and try not to show off this time.Trying to pull off modified versions of Viper maneuvers in a Raptor wastes fuel and I won’t give you extra points.”He snapped open his own preflight checklist.

“You are no fun.”

“So you keep telling me.”He said dryly, eyes remaining on his list and pointedly avoiding her gaze.

“This is ridiculous, I can fly anything.”She neglected to remind him that she originally trained to fly Vipers before Commander Lawson had tapped her for a relatively new branch of the Caprican Special Forces. 

“Then I’m sure today will be a walk in the park for you.”Carol gave him a sidelong glance.Despite his annoyed tone, he had turned in his chair and was watching her with dancing eyes, another reminder that as much as she enjoyed yanking his chain, he gave as good as he got.

Carol checked her watch.

“Am I keeping you from something or are you ready to start the preflight check?” he asked and gestured towards her binder.

“We can’t start yet.”At Yon’s raised eyebrows she hastened to add, “And the Commander’s already cleared it.”

Yon sighed.“Why does that not fill me with confidence?”

“I’m here,” a young girl’s voice called from just outside the Raptor.

Yon’s head swiveled from the open hatch back to Carol who wore a face of false innocence.

“Carol what did you do?” he asked calmly, placid as a lake on a windless day, just before an avalanche tumbled down from the cliffs overhead and broke the stillness in a thunderous roar.

“Well, Maria got put on the active crew roster last-minute for cargo run to Sagittaron and she’s supposed to be gone for a week.”

Once her contract had ended four years prior, Maria had decided that rather than re-up for another term, she opted to join the Colonial Fleet Reserves and had been hired on by a small, family-owned shipping business.The intention had been a more manageable schedule that kept her on shorter cargo runs while Monica was in school and left her enough time planet-side to attend Monica’s pyramid games.

But the freight company was expanding, recently picking up large contracts to run goods to more of the remote colonies.The increased hours were supposed to be a temporary measure until Talos could shore up their staffing to cover all the new flights, but Carol could see how much it frustrated Maria to be again spending days away from her daughter.The unpredictability alone reminded her too much of her time in the fleet.

Still, it didn’t prevent Maria from trying to talk Carol into joining herself once her current contract term ended.

Flying was flying, Maria had told her that very morning when Carol protested how unfair it was that Maria’s week of vacation carefully scheduled to align with Monica’s school break had turned into a last minute cargo run.Carol would have told Talos where he could shove his flight schedule then reminded Maria how little her friend was selling the appeal of private sector life.But Maria just laughed and told Carol she probably saw more dogfights flying a tight landing window on a short runway at the Picon shipping yard than Carol would ever see in the Colonial Fleet.

Which was probably true.Since the Armistice with the Cylons forty years prior, military life had become relatively dull.Of course there was always the rogue terrorist cell or humanitarian disaster they were called to assist with, but overall it was a career, not an adventure.And Carol had always been looking for the next challenge.After basic training, she went on to flight school on Picon where she had met Maria.

And while Maria stayed flying Vipers, Carol’s Viper training became a springboard to launch her into Starforce.At one point she assumed she would remain with her unit for the rest of her career, serving with Yon, Atlas, Minerva, Korath, and Bron.But recently things had become... complicated, and she needed distance.That complication wasn’t made any easier by being stuck in the cramped confines of a Raptor with Yon for the rest of the day. The addition of her adoptive niece on the training run was a welcomed buffer.

Monica climbed up into the Raptor.A backpack that looked surprisingly empty though clearly heavy was strapped to her back and she carried a large duffle bag with both hands, one of Maria’s old bags from Flight School if Carol had to guess.

“Commander Lawson said you and Auntie Carol were only supposed to be gone nine hours and that if I behaved, I could come too instead of being stuck at the daycare with the babies all day.”

Yon’s eyes darted from Carol to Monica as if he couldn’t comprehend the scene unfolding before him.“You can’t possibly expect me to believe the Commander approved this.”

Carol waggled her eyebrows at him and smirked.Then at his annoyed glare, she rolled her eyes.“Oh come on.Monica couldn’t be stuck on a cargo freighter for a full week when I can watch her.And you said we had to do this today so I couldn’t bail.She’ll be good, won’t you?”

Monica nodded her head enthusiastically and smiled, a tight closed-mouth smile that appeared too forced to convey true innocence.It looked exactly like Carol’s smile when she was trying to avoid trouble or attempting to lie.

“I have a hard time believing this when you frequently refer to her as ‘Lieutenant Trouble.’”

“I’ll be good,” Monica chimed in.“I brought some books to read.”Her smiled broadened into a genuine grin as Carol flashed her a thumbs-up.

Yon shook his head with a soft sigh.It was the last gasp of resistance, a puff of air that signaled his resignation, that once again Carol was going to get her way.She bit her lip so the reflexive smile wouldn’t appear as though she was gloating.

“Alright,” he conceded and moved to help Monica stow her bags.“Carol, go grab her the smallest flight suit you can find.”

“Already taken care of,” Carol grinned holding up her duffle.

He stared at her with a small smile, half-annoyed and half-amused.She felt heat on the back of her neck.Carol broke eye-contact first and busied herself by pulling out a flight suit and helmet from her bag.Yon walked over to help Monica with her luggage.

“I’ll take care of this one,” Monica slipped the backpack from her shoulders and protectively held it to her chest.The zipper was only partially closed and she fumbled to keep the bag closed.

“Suit yourself,” he said.

Then his voice warmed into that of a patient teacher as he showed her which seat she was to buckle herself into and instructing her not to touch any of the dials or sensors on the panel.He flipped a series of switches and a wave of static filled the cabin.

When Monica asked, he explained about requisitioning a long-range transponder.They typically weren’t installed on Raptors— the ships were only intended to make short jumps ahead of the fleet to scout conditions— but they would be traveling at sub-light speeds towards the asteroid belt and the various minerals and clouds of dust affected the short-range wireless devices and Yon was nothing if not over-prepared.

“Cool, like mom’s ship!”

“Exactly like the larger ships.”He smiled in return.“You will let me know if any print-outs come out of this slot, right?”

Monica nodded seriously.

“Excellent.”He moved back to his chair, ignoring Carol’s suspicious glare until he had flipped back open his checklist.“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’re still her favorite,” he told her smugly.

Checklists complete and their passenger suited up, the training run was underway.

“Alright Vers, take her into orbit.”

Carol grinned as they broke through the atmosphere.The heavens rushed to greet them and Caprica shrank to a small blue marble in the distance.This must have been how their ancestors felt when the left Kobol for the distant stars that would become their homeworlds, this rush, this exultation, the freedom and wonder when gazing out at the immense expanse of the endless void.Carol never wanted it to end.

“Why does he call you Vers?I thought your call sign was Avenger,” Monica inquired from her seat at the communications terminal.

Her squad had started abbreviating the name to ‘Venger about six months after she had joined.Two syllables worked much between than three in the field when brevity was more necessity than preference.About two years after that, her radio cut own during a recon mission, and Yon had heard her garbled response as ‘Vers.’ He had used that in place of her call sign ever since.The rest of their squad had soon followed suit.It had started as a retaliatory joke, she and Yon were always goading one another.She had since grown used to it and didn’t mind the name, but she would never admit that to him.

“He thinks he’s being funny,” Carol shot back.“He has to live up to his own call sign: Chuckles.”

“Whoever you had at basic had no consideration for anyone who would be saddled with you and the mouthful that name is,” he retorted wryly.

“I bet you’d like to be saddled and get a mouthful,” the retort was out of her mouth before she realized. 

Yon coughed awkwardly, his eyes darting behind Carol to Monica.“This is hardly appropriate with a child present.”

“You are such a boy scout!” Carol joked loudly to conceal her own embarrassment.Just a few more weeks, she could manage without another slip until then, probably.

“Your call sign is really ‘Chuckles?’” Monica asked.

He explained that sometimes the names were teasing, taking a characteristic and amplifying it through a name.Sometimes they were ironic.His intention was clearly to present himself as measured and serious.Carol knew better, but she could still mock this portrayal.

“He’s saying he’s a stick in the mud and his instructor thought it’d be a good joke,” Carol explained.

“Does this mean you’re Colonel Chuckles?” Monica snorted.Carol whooped with unrestrained laughter.

“That’s Mr. Colonel Chuckles to you, thank you,” he countered with a glance back at her.

His eyes caught Carol’s on the return and they shared a smile.Her laughter died on her lips.

It wasn’t the first time she had wondered what things might be like between the two of them if things were different.If she wasn’t in his unit... if he felt the same.He was her commanding officer, but they were also much closer than anyone else in Starforce.They spent nearly all their free time together, first under flimsy pretexts of sparring together, then without justification. 

Even Lawson had once told her with a wink and a nod simply to not get caught, not be stupid, and to let her know when things became so serious that Carol needed to be transferred to another unit in Starforce under Lawson’s chain of command.Carol would have balked at Lawson’s assumption had it not given voice to her own fantasies.Instead the tepid endorsement constantly drummed in the back of her mind.Everyone already had assumed they were openly breaking regs and what they supposedly did in their off-duty hours was of little concern to their commander.So why hadn’t they?

But nothing ever came of it.If Yon noticed her mangled, half formed attempts at flirtation that always failed to land when they exercised together, or ate together, or did any one of the dozens of other things they did together to remain each other’s company, he kept it to himself.Gradually embarrassment gave way to disappointment that eventually mellowed into acceptance.Either he didn’t notice or he didn’t care to.It was fine, she told herself.He was still her best friend after Maria.And maybe that could be enough.It wasn’t though, and as she reflected on it, she again felt the hollow pang of unrealized hopes.

She felt stifled, hampered, unable to fully act herself with her team for fear they would pick up on her feelings for Yon.With Yon she felt none of those restrictions, well, fewer.If he hadn’t noticed by now, he never would, but she noticed how Minerva’s gaze flitted between her and Yon as if she was dissecting each word or glance they exchanged.She had finally decided it was time to join to another unit. 

She still hadn’t found the courage to tell Yon about the transfer request.

* * *

Helios Alpha System

5 hours before The Fall

“Something’s coming through the transponder,” Monica said as the whirling sound of the printer rang out.

“What have you got there?” he asked as he leaned back to meet Monica stretched arm, the slip of paper held between two fingers.He caught the paper and began to read.His brow creased.“Fleet headquarters asked for the status on all ships with faster-than-light capabilities.”

“Why?” Carol asked absently.

“Apparently the diplomat out at the armistice station is having mechanical problems.”

That was more interesting.“Are you going to respond?”Her eyes flashed, alert and calculating.

Yon shook his head.“They already have our flight plan and we’re not deviating so you can go off and play hero.”

“But I’d be so good at it.”

He rolled his eyes.“No.We’ll let someone else deal with it.”

Carols shot him a look.“You’re no fun.”

“More practically, our FTL range is limited and we would have to make too many jumps to get out that far.So I’m afraid you’ll just have to keep to your course.”

Yon looked at the message again and frowned.

“What is it?”

“This message is time stamped three hours earlier, just before the mid-watch ended.Why are we only receiving it now?”He shot up, his mouth pressed into a taut line and retreated to the communications console.Carol heard a series of clicks as he fired off a message through the wireless transponder and then Yon’s voice as he briefly explained to Monica the communications protocols and expected time lag between messages.

Yon returned to his chair a short time later after herding Monica back into her chair at the terminal.“Strange,” he mused as he dropped to his seat.

When Carol asked what he meant, he only replied: “Command never saw that communique.”

Carol shrugged.That could mean anything.It could mean the individual who answered his transmission hadn’t seen it or someone was sloppy in reviewing the logs. It could simply mean it originated from another branch.But Yon’s frown only deepened and she knew he was weighing out the possibilities.

“I want you to spool up the FTL and input the emergency coordinates,” he instructed calmly.

“Why?”Her head jerked to him.For a standard training flight his directive was highly irregular.Once they returned to base he would be excoriated for the amount of fuel wasted maintaining the FTL drive.

His eyebrows pulled low over his eyes.“Just a feeling.”

* * *

Helios Alpha System

During The Fall

Carol pulled a hard turn in the Raptor, marking the turn around an invisible marker she had set for herself only announcing how many stellar units she would travel before the maneuver.Then, exactly at that point she pull the ship hard to starboard, turning the ship with an ease which concealed the difficulty given the momentum and tightness of the turn.

She looked at Yon expectantly.

With some affected reluctance he nodded.“That actually was pretty good.”

“In your report, be sure to note how it was the _best_ flying of a Raptor you’ve ever seen.”

“Almost,” he chaffed.

Carol rolled her eyes.“Now I know you’re kidding.”

“Maybe if you applied yourself a bit more, you could achieve the rank of captain.Just think: Captain Danvers.That has a nice ring.”

It was an old, well-trod argument between the two of them.If she would, on occasion stop with the japes and jokes, buckle down, and take the additional training for more specializations she could ascend to colonel and eventually command her own unit.But that was what Yon had wanted for himself, and just because he had achieved his own dream, it didn’t mean she had to make it her own.

“You told me you put in the paperwork in for my promotion.”

“No, I said I _started_ the paperwork.If I finish it depends largely on how today goes.And I can’t say that it got off to a great start with a stowaway onboard.”

“I’m not a stowaway if you knew I was here the whole time,” Monica said.

Carol shrugged.“The kid’s got a point.”

“You’re not supposed to take her side, LT,” he called back to Monica with a laugh.“You’re supposed to defer to your ranking officer while in space or we’ll have a mutiny on our hands.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Carol smiled in response.“What do you think, LT?”

When Monica made no reply, both Yon and Carol craned their necks around.Monica was shuffling towards the front of the Raptor, eyes wide and face drawn.A scrap of paper was in her hands.

Monica passed him the paper.Her face was nervous.“I, um, I read it,” she said by way of explanation.

His eyes glided over the words once, twice, three times before he exhaled a long, skittering breath.“Monica,” Yon began, “I’m going to need to switch places with you so we can get more information.Come up here and sit with your Aunt Carol.Please don’t touch anything on the console.”

Monica agreed in a small voice.

Without a word, he passed the slip to Carol.

_Attention: all colonial units.Cylon attack underway.This is no drill._

More information began pouring through the transmitter, the printer working ceaselessly as reports flooded through the communications terminal.Caprica was burning.The capitol of the Twelve Colonies and the center of culture, arts, and education had been hit by multiple nuclear missiles.Fleet Headquarters on Picon had been wiped out.The military shipping yards orbiting Scorpia had been destroyed.One fourth of the fleet, destroyed in an instant, as though someone had flipped a switch and disabled the thirty Battlestars without a single defensive shot fired.

Yon had been a child during the Cylon War, young enough to forget the specifics of battles and stratagems, but old enough to remember the blind terror of having to spend nights in a bunker and days listening to the sounds of too-near explosions.Everyone had grown up on stories from their parents of the war and how the servants of man, the Cylons, had rebelled against their creators and waged war on them.

Time lead to a certain distance, blurring the edges of the stories that were passed down.To someone like Carol who was born almost a decade after the armistice, the war was as remote an event as the Twelve Colonies’ exodus from Kobol, the birthplace of mankind and home of the gods.For her, the tactics used to fight the Cylons had barely been a week’s lecture at the Academy.For the current cadets it likely comprised less than a day’s worth of material as each successive class drifted a bit further down the river of time from the fixed shores of their past.And why would the younger generations need to be reminded of such a dark time for the Colonies?Because surely the Cylons would never return.And if they did, surely it wouldn’t be to destroy humanity.That was unthinkable.

But now it was happening.

Suddenly Carol was grateful for the semester Yon had of classes as a cadet, full of outdated war strategies that with a few words on a slip of paper became invaluable.

Yon grabbed the tool kit and began work on removing the panel covering one of the electronics suites behind her chair.She watched him in silence until he withdrew the bundle of connections and began unlinking wires from the connection ports.

“What are you doing?” Carol asked.

He continued rapidly disconnecting wires, eyes fixed on his task as he answered.“Unlinking the ship’s computer from navigation.”

“Do you think that will help?” Her voice was like brittle glass.

“I don’t know, Carol.It’s just a guess at this point.”

She bit her lip and looked down at her hands on the ship controls.Still steady, remarkably.Good.She needed to remain calm and in control.This was just like any other mission or training exercise.Just focus, just breathe.

“Auntie Carol?”Monica’s voice sounded fragile and uncertain from the short distance away in the copilot’s chair.

“I’m sure your mom is fine, LT.”She stretched her arm and held out her hand to grasp Monica’s.Monica sniffed and wiped her face with her free hand.There they sat listening to the constant hum of the communication’s printer spitting out new messages and Yon’s shuffling as wires were removed and bundled.

When Yon moved to return to the cockpit, his foot caught on the strap of Monica’s backpack.He tripped and the bag stumbled with him, letting out a loud wail.

“What the—?” Yon exclaimed as the bag writhed.

“Goose!” Monica cried, rushing to the bag.

Commander Lawson’s orange cat who routinely had the run of the base jumped out of the backpack, sauntering up to the cockpit as though her domain extended to the small ship before jumping on Carol’s lap.She laughed despite her lingering terror.Yon glowered.

“You snuck a cat on a Raptor,” he observed with an incredulous tone.

It was almost a relief for this new event.As if Goose’s presence had shattered the crystalline wall of dread and now they could step forward through the looking glass unhindered by the lingering reflections of a world that no longer existed.

“She looked lonely,” Monica protested, her voice hitched.She moved to pluck the cat out of Carol’s lap and settle the feline on her own.

Yon threw his hands in front of him, palms up and splayed wide, and looked pointedly at Carol.She glared at him and shrugged her shoulders, wondering what he expected her to do about the addition of a cat now they were stuck in space.

Monica held Goose closer and the cat, always particular about the type of person she allowed to shower her with affection, purred and nuzzled Monica’s nose against her own.They both watched this exchange and Carol pinned Yon with a look which told him silently that no good would come in his fussing over another unplanned passenger.

Picon Fleet Headquarters was likely a crater at this point, and Commander Wendy Lawson gone with everyone else they had just seen that morning.Goose would be alongside her owner if Monica hadn’t decided to bring the cat with her on an impulse.

With a final frown at Goose, Yon turned and walked to the communications terminal.Carol stared out the panel into the dark of space.In the distance the bright star of Helios Gamma burned like a distant torch.How many millions of people stared up at the same sun as destruction rained down?

Monica’s tears subsided, but she kept her eyes closed and buried in Goose’s neck, as if obstructing her vision could block out the reality of what had happened.

* * *

Carol walked back to Yon’s station at the communications console.His chin rested on his hand as he stared blankly at the screens.

“Anything?” she asked as she approached.

He shook his head, his eyes remained locked on the screens.“The base isn’t responding.It’s not that I expected them to after the reports, but I had hoped...I tried several other bases.Nothing.”

They really were stranded then.Without communication from the Colonial Fleet, they were cut off from everything.They couldn’t risk landing blind when they might run into the Cylons.

She took a step closer and rested a hand on his shoulder, but he continued staring ahead, not acknowledging her or saying anything more.Her hand inched away when his darted up, catching her fingers and holding them in place.Carol held her breath.His thumb moved across her knuckles idly.

He turned the chair, keeping hold of her hand in his while he moved to clasp it between both of his hands.She gulped and her face felt flushed at the sudden physical contact from him.

“Yon, I,” she began.Her voice cracked while trying to speak softly enough that the hum of the ship could keep their conversation private.She winced at the sound.She didn’t feel like the loud and confident member of the Caprican Starforce right then.“In case we don’t— You know that I always felt—”

“ _Vers_ ,” he interrupted in a low, insistent voice.“Don’t say anything you don’t mean.Nothing you’d later wish to take back.”

He did know then.All the times Carol wondered how he could remain so oblivious to her affections were nothing more than her deluding herself.He knew and he was giving her an out.The worlds may be ending, but there he was, protecting her so she didn’t make a fool of herself.

Heat flooded her face.“I wouldn’t,” she protested. But the confession still died on her lips and her resolve fled along with her courage.

But then he pressed a kiss against her hand, his lips lingering against her fingers before releasing them.Her hand fell limply to her side as she gaped with wide-eyed confusion.He stood, inching towards the rear of the Raptor.

“I’m going to take inventory of what supplies are in the emergency kits,” he murmured as he passed by.

She bit her lip until the heat on her face cooled.

* * *

Helios Alpha System

4 hours after The Fall

“Oh frak me!” Carol shouted at the blare of the scanner rent through the Raptor.“Two Cylon raiders.Five minutes out.”

“They’re far enough out, they may not be able to detect us,” Yon appeared at her shoulder, tapping Monica’s arm lightly as an instruction for her to vacate the cockpit chair.Goose had retreated to the relative security of Monica’s backpack when the alarm first sounded.

“And if you’re wrong?”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Where are the weapons on this thing?” she said, eyes darting around at the read-outs for the controls to launch ship countermeasure.

“This was a training exercise!I didn’t request any ordinance!”

“What happened to always being prepared?”

“Forgive me for not planning for a Cylon attack during your flight training.Monica, make sure you’re buckled in,” Yon ordered.Once she called back that she was strapped in he barked, “Vers, jump to the emergency coordinates.”

“Jump in three... two... one.Jump!”

The odd feeling of vertigo— of simultaneously being pushed and pulled from a single direction— hit her with full force.Then just before the suspension of time edged upon the unbearable, she became the thread that passed through a needle.And then there they were, drifting far from where they had been just a moment before.

She stretched, lengthening her spine and hearing, feeling the faint pop signaling an incremental relief from recent tension, that familiar throbbing in her lower back from being pulled through space.Unlike some of the pilots she had trained with, at least jumps never made her feel nauseous.She had heard from the deck hands back on base of crew members that would require medication to counteract the resulting migraines.Comparatively, the dull ache she felt in her after a jump was a blessing, an unobtrusive companion that could be readily ignored when necessary, and usually faded a few hours post-jump.

But she still could never shake the feeling of unease every time she made a jump, that knowledge that the the drive would spin and every cell would be squeezed through the fabric of space and time and transported somewhere else.It was hard enough to fathom academically, let alone reconcile emotionally.Even the safest jumps under scheduled conditions had their share of risks, not unlike flying a Viper.But at least in the cockpit of a Viper the challenges were visible points, things that could be avoided or approached.During a jump the challenges were the planet two degrees off that one missed calculation could destroy a ship in an instant when the ship appeared inside its molten core.

“Where are we?” Monica asked once the jump was complete.

“Dark space between Helios Alpha and Helios Beta,” Carol answered.

“We’ll wait here for several hours until the threat is passed or until I can make contact with Command.”Yon began to unbuckle himself to again switch places with Monica in the dance they had perfected since the attacks had began.

“We can’t just stay here, we have to go find my mom!” Monica pounded up to the front of the cockpit standing between their chairs.

Yon raked a hand along his scalp, his usually styled hair askew. “Monica, her ship could be anywhere.”

“That’s not true,” Monica countered with wide, insistent eyes.Sharp, determined eyes that she got from her mother that wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer even from a colonel.“Her flight was scheduled to leave Caprica three hours after us.Can’t you, I don’t know, plot her course or something and jump to where she’d be?”

“Assuming they stopped after news broke, it’s... possible.”

Carol pulled at his elbow, drawing him away to the back of the Raptor.

“We don’t know who’s in charge of the fleet, and it’s safe to say all of our command structure is wiped out.We have nowhere to go and we cannot keep a child on a military ship in a time of war.Let’s do it.Let’s just attempt a jump to the most likely coordinates and see if we can find them.”

Yon paused, then nodded.“Alright.”

They spread the star charts out on the narrow strip of a desk running parallel to the hull at the communications console, both leaning towards one another as they drew with grease-pens the likely trajectory.She could feel his breath on her cheek and hated how she felt goosebumps rise down her arms as his arm brushed hers as he pointed to the most probably points where they could radio for other ships.

Carol began calculating the first jump point, passing the paper to Yon once she had completed the equations.

“Let me check your calculations again,” Yon said.

“They’re still going to be the same as the last three times you’ve checked them.”

He looked nervous.She wasn’t used to him looking nervous.Even on some of their most difficult missions she had never seen his jaw constantly clenched or his face locked with dread.She wondered if it would be inappropriate to ask how he was, now that the worlds were ending.Maybe she should wait until they found safe harbor.

Or maybe he would rather wait until he could confide in a stranger rather than his closest friend now that he had been accosted with the undeniable proof of how she felt about him.She bit her lip and tasted blood.This was not the time to think about it.

He nodded.“Okay, input the coordinates.”

“Jump.”


	2. Part II

Dark space between Helios Alpha and Helios Gamma Systems

5 hours after The Fall

She always found it eerie floating in dark space between solar systems.Instead of a local star to orient her, nearby systems thousands of light years away shimmered like the fireflies she saw as a child in the woods on Picon, distant and unreachable.Carol stretched, rolling her shoulders back and sitting tall.The ache from two jumps in rapid succession gaining in determination, a pain that eventually would refuse to be ignored and demand attention.

Yon began sorting and filtering through the transmissions, neglected during the time they took to check and recheck the jump coordinates.He stood in the aisle between Carol and Monica’s chairs in the cockpit and passed Carol a slip of paper transmitted from the Galactica:

_To all Colonial units: I am taking command of fleet. All units ordered to rendezvous at Ragnar Anchorage for regroup and counter-attack. Acknowledge by same encryption protocol, Adama._

“ _Galactica_?” Carol’s brows furrowed.“Wasn’t that decommissioned?”

Yon scoffed, dismissive of what was now by all accounts the ranking ship and ranking officer in the tattered remains of the fleet. “If a ship that old is leading the fleet, then there’s not much of it left.But at least we know where everyone is hiding.”

Carol was equally unimpressed.The vessel was a relic from the war with the Cylons— the _first_ Cylon war, she mentally amended.It was old, outdated, and lacking in both modern weapons systems and a larger crew to man them.

In her fourth year of grade school, her teacher insisted on Carol’s class memorizing the names of the original twelve Battlestars in a song set to a popular Tauron lullaby.If she heard the first line of the song, her mind would still jump to supply the ship names in lieu of the lullaby’s actual lyrics. ‘ _Galactica stands for Caprica, a defender proud and true.Columbia is for Aquaria with its oceans cold and blue...’_

“Hiding?” she asked Yon with a frown.

He nodded.“An old munitions depot,” he explained, “it’s located in the orbit of a gas giant that interferes with DRAIDIS.It’s a perfect hiding spot.”

“So we’ve got our next heading after we find Maria’s ship,” Carol observed as she pointed at the screen.A ship with colonial identification was less than ten minutes away at sublight, and in voice range.Her heart leapt into her throat.“Looks like we found someone.”

Yon nodded.

“Colonial Freighter, this is Raptor X-2119A.Please identify yourself,” Carol said through the radio.

“Carol?”A familiar voice crackled through the speakers.“By the gods, I hope that’s you!”

Tears leaked from her eyes.She looked over at Monica who looked too terrified to breathe.“It’s me.I’ve got someone here who wants to see you.Is there a cargo bay big enough we can land in?”

“I think we can arrange something.”Carol could hear Maria’s smile through the comms.

Once they landed on the _Caprican Marvel_ and disembarked from the Raptor, Maria threw her arms around Monica, then Carol, then Yon.

“I’ve got to say, I’ve never been so happy the two of you talked Lawson into this little stunt,” Maria grinned through her tears.

At the mention of her commander, her friend, her mentor, Carol’s face fell.She would never see Lawson again.There were so many people they would never see again.

“How bad is it?” Maria asked.

“Pretty sure our entire base is wiped out.Haven’t you been getting transmissions?”

Maria shook her head.“Civilian communications are spotty and unreliable.What we have been hearing is beyond belief.”

Carol let out a sardonic laugh.“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

Monica grabbed her mother’s hand, pulling her in the direction of the Raptor.As they walked off Carol thought she heard Monica say something about Goose.She smirked.Monica had always wanted a pet, but Maria had insisted that with their schedules, one was out of the question.Of course Lieutenant Trouble would find a way around that.

Carol suspected Monica’s original plan had been to care for Goose her entire week with Carol.Then using Lawson and her adoptive aunt as backup, she would lay forth her trials and victories in caring for the particular feline, and why such initiative should be rewarded with a companion of her very own.It was a sound strategy and the probability of success high, if only everything had proceeded as they expected.

Yon drew the captain of the ship aside, a gruff, sarcastic man she had only met once before.“Does your ship have FTL capabilities?” he asked Talos.

“It’s offline, but yeah.”

“You need to get it back online.The Cylons have been scouting, looking for lone ships to take out.And disconnect your main computer from navigation.We may need to make an emergency jump.”

Talos’ eyes narrowed.“To where?”

“Ragnar Anchorage.”

Talos huffed and rolled his eyes.“Oh, an anchorage he says?So we can get press-ganged into service?No thanks.”

“You have a better idea?Your ship has no weapons and minimal shielding.How long do you think we can make it out here by ourselves?We need to find the rest of the fleet.”

Soren, Talos’ wife, appeared by the cargo bay hatch and interrupted, “Maybe we should work on getting the FTL back online first and then we can fight about where to go.”She shot a pointed glare at Talos should he dare to contradict her.“Talos, why don’t you grab Fury and get him to help you work on the FTL computer.I believe he’s in bay three assessing what cargo we may have onboard that is perishable.”She gestured towards Maria and their new arrivals.“Come and sit in the galley while we wait.Monica, my girls will be happy to see you again.”

Carol had been surprised to learn that not only had Talos and Soren brought their girls on the ship for the week-long cargo haul to Sagittaron, but the children spent far more time aboard the cargo freighters than in their small apartment back on Caprica.When their eldest daughter had been eight months old, Soren who had grown frustrated by Talos’ long absences, declared her intent for the captain’s quarters to be converted into family quarters for them.

And so it had been for nearly a decade that Soren would oversee the needs of the crews while Talos would see to the needs of the ships and the girls would follow their parents to distant ports of call.

They sat in a wide galley, large enough to act as a recreational area, kitchen, and dining hall for the ship’s crew.Carol took a long sip from the proffered water bottle— food was unthinkable with knots of anxiety still twisting her insides— and pressed her arm more forcefully against Maria’s, grateful for the solid presence of her best friend as they squeezed onto the narrow seat of the booth meant only for a single occupant.

The pair of them watched Monica playing a card game with the two girls across the galley, Goose curled up under the table at Monica’s feet, her constant companion.Carol set down her drink, folded her hands, and allowed herself a moment of pretend: that the worlds were not burning, that everyone they knew beyond the hull of this ship wasn’t dead, that the apocalypse hadn’t come.

All too soon, Yon appeared.“I think they’re ready for us,” he announced.

“FTL is back online,” Fury wiped the sweat from his brow and addressed the gathered group crowded into the narrow space just inside the cockpit.

“Great, put in the coordinates for Ragnar,” Yon ordered.

“Now, hold on,” Talos said and he swiveled around in his chair, “I’m the captain of this ship, and I didn’t agree to any of this.”

Yon took a step towards Talos, but Carol handed a firm hand on his shoulder, tugging him back.“You don’t have to stay.Just get us there and we’ll take the Raptor,” Carol said.

Yon added, “The fleet is massing at Ragnar.It’ll be safest there for the time being.”

Ultimately Soren made the decision for Talos.They would travel to Ragnar.Carol found herself willing her jaw to unclench and her muscles relax as she braced for the third jump in a day.Again, she felt the rush as space, time, distance.All flowed like rapid battering of waves, buffeting against her.The onslaught more present, more relentless than before.

“I thought you said the fleet would be here,” Talos ground out, looking through the storm of dust that made up the Ragnar’s orbit.

“It’s only a single Battlestar,” Maria said.

“And a bunch of civilian ships,” Fury added.

“Is this all that’s left?”Carol’s hand fumbled for Maria’s until their fingers caught.Gripping tightly until a prickling numbness settled in her fingertips, clinging with all her might to an anchor in a universe where she suddenly felt adrift.

* * *

Battlestar Galactica

Ragnar Anchorage

8 hours after the fall

  
Maria had loaded her belongings onto the Raptor and then, bidding her crew-mates from the _Marvel_ a solemn goodbye, joined Monica, Carol, Goose, and Yon on the shuttle. Maria’s life as a civilian had ended and duty demanded she return to the Colonial Fleet, what little remained of it.

After landing, the deck crew of the _Galactica_ descended upon the Raptor with it’s “X” designation for an experimental craft like ravenous dogs would fall upon a scrap of meat.In a hurried post-flight check they were herded off the vessel with their arm-full of belongings as the techs poured over the cutting-edge technology that had managed to survive the Cylons when so many standard Colonial Fleet ships had not.

The pack of them stood awkwardly, stranded on the hanger deck.

“I’m going to go take Monica and see if we can’t grab quarters somewhere.”Maria leaned close to speak lowly into Carol’s ear.“She’s still really shaken from everything, and I want to try to get her somewhere quiet.”

Carol nodded in understanding.

“Here—” Maria held out her arms to take their flight bags from Yon.“I’ll keep them with our stuff until you get bunks assigned.You should try to get something to eat,” Maria called to them over her shoulder as she lead Monica away.

Had it really been fourteen hours since she had boarded that Raptor and left everything behind?

Carol looked over at Yon.“You want to go find the mess hall?”

They wandered through the corridors until a random Marine observed their dazed expressions and pointed them in the direction of the mess.The room was packed, full of boisterous groups using the break to refuel the ship and load up ammunitions from the anchorage as a time to regroup.Within the confines of the dining facility, one would fail to realize the packed room represented a large portion of the remaining human race.

Carol stood dazed for several minutes, and she felt the slow spread of shock beginning to snake down her mind, creeping towards her heart with a dread as cold as any winter.Her breathing became ragged and she again felt the dizzying whirl of space, though she knew the Battlestar was docked.

She felt a brush against her elbow and she blinked rapidly, forcing her vision to clear and steady, returning back to the present.Turning towards the source, she saw Yon, balancing two trays loaded with food.More food than they needed, far more than she could stomach, but she knew the ration bars would be hurriedly stuffed into the pockets of his flight suit.

Once the Cylons had attacked, his chief concerns narrowed down to protecting his team.She wondered how long it would take the maintenance crew to realize the emergency kits on the Raptor had been completely cannibalized, the components stuffed in Yon and Carol’s duffels.They were strangers here, and with no confidence in the leadership, they had taken it upon themselves to provide for their needs when the opportunity struck.

Carol grabbed one of the trays and wove between the press of bodies all cluttered around the tables to an empty spot on the far side of the room.Yon followed and dropped his tray onto the table before taking Carol’s and setting it alongside.

With hurried introductions to the nearby comrades, they crowded together on a section of bench, so close their legs were touching. Carol swallowed, her throat dry.They were pressed as close as she and Maria had been on the narrow booth of the _Marvel_ , but this was anything but comforting.

Questions followed, everyone anxious to share exactly what they were doing when they learned the worlds were ending, and equally interested to know how the newcomers found their way onto the _Galactica_.

Something must have given away her feelings.Maybe, like Minerva had, one of them picked up on how she looked at Yon. Maybe she leaned too close to him. Maybe it was the way they each began distributing the contents of their trays to the other.She couldn’t stand rehydrated potatoes and began spooning her portion onto Yon’s tray.He knew she preferred the mixed berry yogurt and wordlessly dropped the small container into her outstretched hand.

“So how long have you two been married?” the maintenance tech across from them asked.

They both started speaking at once.

“Oh, no we’re not—” Carol began.

“We’re not married, just engaged,” Yon answered at the same time.The word ‘engaged’ silenced her and she gaped at him.He shrugged.“There’s no point in lying about it here, Carol.”

She fought to keep her expression neutral.What was he playing at?To reject her in private and then suggest this farce in public?He offered her a soft smile.She wanted to punch it off his face.

“Good think the two of you were on out flight training,” the comms officer added.

“Very lucky,” Carol replied flatly.Her eyes kept darting over to Yon though she fought to keep her head facing ahead, to avoid staring at him openly.

* * *

After a skirmish fleeing Ragnar, the fleet of refugees hid in dark space.What was once a liability with the vast expanses of nothing, too vast for the Cylons to find them quickly, now provided them respite.Time to regroup, to plan, to survive.

Funeral ceremony completed, Carol was pointed towards the deck where the new arrivals had gained quarters.Yon followed close behind, her constant shallow, the habit began after announcing their engagement in the mess.In the hours since he had remained as close to her as possible, as if close proximity would sell the lie in a way that distance would expose.

It started to get old in the first half-hour and she had been grateful that in the chaos of activity when the fleet prepared to flee Ragnar they had hastily been assigned differing duties, only to find him immediately by her side the moment the immediate threat had passed.

She should be more charitable, she chided herself.Besides Maria, he was her closest friend.Of course he would want to stick near the only people he knew on this strange, old warship.But then she remembered the ease at which he conjured a story which would soon spread throughout the entirety of the military. A terrible joke at her expense formed the bars of an inescapable cage.He had finally gone too far in his teasing and now they were both stuck.

Carol eased open the hatch and entered the officer’s quarters that Maria and Monica had claimed.The room was arranged for a senior officer and was well-furnished despite its small size.A double bed, a couch, a small cafe table with four chairs, and the most luxurious feature of all: a tiny lavatory complete with a shower, sink, and toilet. 

This area had clearly been designated as one of the display rooms for the museum.The room smelled a mixture of stale air and cleaning reagents, as if the room had been given on thorough scrub and was then closed off until after the last of the crew had left.About a dozen stanchions were clustered in the corner of the room and the table was littered with as many information panels that had been pried off of various surfaces, each one telling a story of a life that was no more.

Monica slept in the middle of the bed, arms flung out spanning the width of the bed, a pillow thrown over her eyes to block out the light.Goose curled around her feet, emitting a constant purr that roared over the faint groans and creaks of the ship.

“We didn’t see you at the ceremony,” Carol said softly as she lowered herself into one of the chairs.Yon and Maria moved to join her at the table.

“No,” Maria answered.“Monica’s had enough of her childhood destroyed today.I didn’t want her to see all the coffins, not when—”

Not when Maria was now back to active duty.Not when one of those coffins could be Maria’s one day.With roughly fifty-thousand refugees from the colonies, anyone with military training were essential to the continued protection of the fleet.Even fleet wash-outs would be tapped for positions in the days that followed.

“The Commander says he’s taking us to Earth,” Carol reported, tone neutral.Yon huffed, but made no other comment.

“Earth?”Maria’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes grew wide, the soft brown of her irises completely surrounded by white.“I thought that was just a legend.”

“We’ll see, I guess,” Carol yawned.“Starting tomorrow.”

“Your quarters are right next door,” Maria nodded towards the shared wall.“I cleared it with the Quartermaster and set your bags in there.”

“Yon’s quarters, you mean.”Carol glanced over at Yon who remained uncharacteristically silent.

“Both your quarters,” Maria clarified.“Apparently word is you two are engaged?”

The question was aimed at Carol, who clearly Maria had identified as the perpetrator of this lie.Carol’s cheeks flushed and she looked down at her hands clenched in her lap.Bad enough that she had so brazenly exposed her feelings for him in the Raptor immediately following the attack, but if he had managed to put her humiliating infatuation with him out of his mind, Maria’s question and tone pulled it right back to center stage.

Carol rose and started for the hatch.“I’ll just go grab a bunk,” Carol mumbled.

“No, you won’t.”Carol had heard that tone used on Monica countless times.

“Yes, I will,” she insisted, defiant, uneasy, and angry.

“Look,” Maria said as she moved to block Carol’s path, “right now, we don’t know anybody.All we have is each other.And the four of us right here is all the family either of us has left.So if you want to turn your back on the only family you have left, I won’t stop you.But you and I both know what it’s like being in barracks-style quarters, and down there you will be utterly alone and surrounded by strangers.Or you can take the cabin right next to ours and just be damn grateful that out of the billions who died today, you still have three people left who love you and you choose to stick by your _family_.”

Carol’s eyes darted to Yon who sat staring blankly ahead with an unreadable expression etched on his face.

Carol didn’t want to tell Maria that the real reason she suggested the bunks was to escape Yon, to run away from the embarrassment that burned up her neck when she thought about him holding her hand the Raptor as he rejected her.But apparently in the raw aftermath when reason slept and emotions ruled, fleeing from him meant fleeing from Maria and Monica.Maybe in a few days when nerves had settled and shock began to melt into grief, maybe then she could explain to Maria what really happened and why she needed space away from Yon.She could flee to the pilot’s barracks then.

“Come on, Carol,” Yon whispered, fingers ghosting over her elbow.“Let’s go get some rest.”

She followed him into their quarters, just one room to the left of Maria and Monica’s room.Humiliation forgotten as fury bubbled with every step.Carol was angry.Angry at the Cylons.Angry at the death and destruction.Angry at Yon for trapping her with him in this lie when all she wanted to do was escape.And until she was cleared to step into a Viper and blast those toasters out of the sky, she only had one target for her ire.

“Do you want the bed or the couch?” she asked sharply once the hatch had closed, sealing them inside.“You know what, I get the bed.You can take the couch.”

“I’m not certain I understand why you’re angry at me.”He held his hands up in mock surrender.

She bit the corner of her lip as she grabbed her duffle, hoisting the bag onto the bed.“Oh sure,” she spat with a sarcastic edge, “you haven’t done anything recently that would upset me.I cannot believe you told them we were engaged.”

She unzipped the flap and began picking through her meager belongings, fanning them out around her bag.She wondered if her apartment was still standing, if anything of hers beyond these few previsions still existing somewhere in the galaxy.At least protocol required her to pack a personal kit for training flights longer than four hours.At least she had a toothbrush.All told, she was probably in a much better state of preparedness than at least ninety percent of the few remains of the human race.Except she had lost something of herself when she stepped onto _Galactica_.She had lost her independence because Yon had been stupid.

“Well, what did you want me to tell them Carol?” he snapped.“How else should I describe how close we stand, how we look at each other, or how I allow my subordinate to be so utterly—”

“Insubordinate?”She glanced over at him, an eyebrow twitched.

He sighed.“Precisely.”

“Maybe just tell them that we’re friends.”

He looked at her disbelieving.

“It was a dumb thing to say,” he admitted.“But we’re both going to be reassigned to other parts of the ship and I just said the first thing that sprang to mind so they wouldn’t assign us to different shifts and quarters on opposite ends of the ship.”

She hadn’t considered that.Yon would never feel the way about her that she felt about him, but they were close friends.It made a certain kind of sense that he would grasp whatever excuse he could find to keep them together, the last two survivors of their unit.And by now he had to have realized her feelings.

“I know they’re going to throw you back into a Viper the first chance they get,” he continued.“And I also know they won’t be putting a colonel on the flight roster.”

Maybe he thought he would be protecting her if, like Lawson, the senior officers on Galactica assumed they were breaking regs.At least now he had provided the semblance that everything was on the up-and-up.She knew her flaws.She was impulsive, too familiar with her superiors that bordered on insubordination, and her temper could flare and land her into trouble.With her credentials and record, she should have made the rank of captain long ago.And Lawson wasn’t here.He probably thought he was protecting her, inserting himself as a buffer if she ran afoul of the new CAG.

She mulled the ideas over. Something in her expression struck him as forcefully as a blow.“Look,” he rushed to appease her, “we just have to keep the facade up for a little while.Couples break engagements all the time for far smaller reasons than all of society collapsing.I’m fairly certain that after what we’ve just survived, adjusting to life on the run would put a substantial strain on any relationship.It will be a reasonable excuse.”

Suddenly the idea of the ruse ending seemed like a punch in the gut.

“And that’s what you want?To ride it out until the excuse would be believable?”

“I want...” he huffed as he trailed off. “What I want doesn’t matter.”

His face pulled into something unreadable, guarded.She was unused to it.The silence stretched out between them.It became oppressive.

“I put in a transfer request last week,” she blurted out when it became unbearable.

He smiled faintly, sadly.“I know.”

“How?”

“Lawson spoke to me about it, naturally.”He took a step from her.

“You never said anything about it.”

“No.Of course not.You’re a good solider, Carol.There was only one reason I could think of that you would want a transfer and I wasn’t sure I could handle the truth of it.”

“Which reason?”

He looked mortified.“Please don’t make me say it.”

“Tell me,” she pressed.

He stared at his feet and in that moment reminded her of a small child being lectured or bracing themselves for disappointment.“I assumed that you finally realized how deep my infatuation with you ran and you were looking for a way to spare my feelings.”

She knew the exact moment his words landed, she could see it in how his expression fell further and became more shielded than before.She felt it in the involuntary widening of her eyes and gape of her mouth.Her heart pitched.He had stunned her into silence.Of everything she had feared, everything she had expected him to say, this had been the furtherest from her mind.

He looked at her as if she had slapped him.“That, right there, is why I didn’t tell you.”

She laughed at that.Her surprise fading like morning fog and something bolder, deeper taking its place.How wrong they had both been.All this time dancing around the other, using innuendo and sarcasm, and they both feared the other could read their intentions plainly.But they had both been utterly blind.

“And here I thought you were trying to let me down gently.”

It was his turn to appear stunned. Then the beginnings of a smile tugged at his lips. He whispered her name softly, a faint, delicate song on his lips and he stepped closer.“Last chance to run,” he warned.

“I don’t want to run.”

She felt his fingers edging under her tanks, hands joining together to dance over the small of her back then separating to inch near her ribs.

He ghosted kisses up her neck and traced her ear with his nose until she turned her head back and her lips met his.His hesitation melted away and his mouth became greedy and seeking. Rough and desperate, she wondered if his feelings mirrored hers and he was trying to block out all the horrors the day had brought with one of the only good things to emerge from the ashes.

She wanted all of it, to run headlong into the void with him.To drown in him.But he was too careful, too cautious.He had spent too many years wishing for something he feared was beyond him.And all the worlds were ending.He wouldn’t rush this.

His pace slowed and frantic kisses gave way to something slower, more tender. Something that could be built upon the existing foundations.

“It’s been a long day,” he said at length. “We both need some rest.”

Before she could mount a protest, another yawn forced its way out. She snickered at his pointed look.

She set her things aside as they both prepared for the night. She bit her lip to hid a smirk as he pulled back a corner of the bedcovers, knowing that there would be no further debate on if he would take the couch. Flight suits thrown on chairs, boots set by the hatch, they fell into the rhythm of preparing for sleep before both climbing in to bed.

Carol forced her eyes shut, hoping that maybe stillness would help her settle. And though her eyes felt heavy, longing for rest, they burned as her lids closed.Caught in the snare between wake and sleep, unable to commit to either, she rolled onto her side to face her companion.

“Yon?” she whispered before she lost her nerve.

“What is it Carol?”

In the dark with only the emergency light illuminating the patch of flooring near the hatch, she could barely make out his profile.

“Are you okay?I mean, your father, your brother...”

Not just family, she thought.Their friends, their team, the hundreds of nameless faces they saw everyday, gone.Did they suffer?Were they blinded by a sudden flash as the bombs fell and then found themselves in the Elysium fields walking side-by-side with the gods?Or did they somehow survive and were left picking over the ruins of their home while a mere fifty-thousand survivors fled in search of a myth?

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“But I wasn’t close to them.”Not like Yon was close to his family.Every year he put in for leave every Colonial Day.On the years he was successful, he boarded the transport off to his childhood home to spend the holiday surrounded by family.Carol hadn’t spoken to hers since the day she joined the Colonial Fleet.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t mourn their loss.”

“I guess it hasn’t really hit me yet,” she deflected.

It was beginning to hit her though.Like when Monica was a toddler and in frustration would beat her fists against Carol’s legs, the insistent thoughts thrashed against her mind, demanding that she no longer ignore them.They began as a few errant thoughts but in the quiet since the funeral service had grown to a ceaseless torrent of worries.

Sleeping on her side in the double bed proved more difficult when sharing with someone.She tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position, and she lacked the spare pillow to wedge under her side and support her back.Her eyes stung from exhaustion, but she felt something else too.Forcing her eyes open she saw Yon watch her through heavy lidded eyes, as though she was the last thing he wanted to see as he drifted asleep.Sweet if true, but distracting.

With a grunt she turned again, facing away.Though she longed for sleep, she felt restless, unable to remain still.Her back still pulsed with a dull throb from multiple jumps.She felt a hand on her hip.

Yon hummed drowsily.“Get some sleep, Carol.The worlds will still be ending in the morning.”

She puffed out a laugh and tried to calm her movements.If he was going to distract her, he might as well serve a function, she thought, inching towards him until her back felt his form.She felt a ragged inhale from him and then his hand drifted from her hip to her stomach.Then she settled against him, feeling some relief from the ache in her back.Exhaustion snaked its way around her mind and pulled her under into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

The distant hum of the ship grew sharper, more defined.Other sensations joined like the rough scratch of the fabric under her cheek or the heavy weight of an arm slung over her side.Sleep bled slowly into wake and after a moment Carol remembered where she was.

A hand was on her stomach, drawing slow patterns against her skin.Yon was awake too.

“What time is it?” she muttered in a voice still thick with sleep.

“The middle of midwatch by my guess.We still have some time.Although,” he teased, his fingers skimming the underside of her breast, “you should probably get up now so you aren’t late like always.”

“Not nice,” she grumbled, shifting down, pressing close and arching her back, inviting him to explore more of her.“You better be nice to me, or this will be the shortest engagement you’ve had.”

She felt him smile into her neck.“I think you’ll find that I can be very nice.”His hand stretched lower, skimming the top of her briefs.A finger dipped slightly under the waistband tracing the skin above her briefs.

Carol bit back a smile.“Prove it.”

For a moment, he stilled, the tantalizingly slow brush of his fingertips halting and she wondered if again she had bet more than she could stand to lose and had come up short.But then she felt the rumble of his chest and his nose in her hair.The hand on her stomach edged lower still and his other arm snaked between her and the mattress to tilt her head, angling to expose her throat and trail hot opened kisses along her neck. 

She could feel every inch of their bodies pressed together, everywhere he was.She never wanted it to end.She felt like she was flying.

“ _Action stations, action stations_ ,” blared over the PA system.

Carol bit back a curse.Yon’s hands pulled away and she immediately felt cold with their absence.Then in a flurry they pulled on pants, tanks, shoes.Yon halted at the hatch, pulling her in for a bruising kiss, ferocious and fast in its intensity.

Then the hatch was thrown open and they stepped into a new world.The corridor was already a rush of people running to different ends of the ship.

There were so many things she wished she could say. _Stay safe. I’m grateful you’re still here with me, even when the worlds are ending.I forgive you.We’ll figure it out, together.I love you._

“Good hunting,” she said instead.

He grasped both of her shoulders, fingers digging into her flesh like he feared she would slip away.“You too.”

And off they went, rushing towards opposite ends of their new home, to their differing roles to protect, to defend the fractured remains of humanity on a ship bound for distant stars.


End file.
